Yaya DaCosta to play Whitney Houston in biopic; her hottest photos

The Lifetime network has finally found someone to play the lead in the biopic about the late, legendary Whitney Houston.

Yaya DaCosta, 31, who came to fame via “America’s Next Top Model,” will play the late singer in the television movie due out in 2015, TVLine.com reports.

The new film will explore Houston’s relationship with Bobby Brown. Angela Bassett is set to make her directorial debut with the film, being created under the working title “Whitney Houston.” Houston died in 2012 at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., on the eve of that year’s Grammy Awards.

Who is Yaya DaCosta, you may ask?

DaCosta was born Camara DeCosta Johnson in Harlem, N.Y. She is of African American, Brazilian and Nigerian descent. She speaks multiple languages including English, Portuguese, French, Spanish and Japanese. She was scholastically gifted enough to study at the Ivy League school Brown University in Providence, R.I. Needless to say, she was considered the “smart one” on season 3 of “America’s Next Top Model.” She went on to model in multiple magazines before moving onto the big and small screen.

DaCosta has had previous roles in Ugly Better, House and Lee Daniels’ critically-acclaimed film epic The Butler. In June 2012, DeCosta married independent film producer Joshua Lee Alafia and began taking on his surname in public. They have one child, Sankara, in September 2013.